The Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) says it will commence an
indefinite strike by 12 midnight today (Feb. 17) if the Federal
Government failed to meet members’ demands. The National President of
the Medical and Health Workers Union who also doubled as JOHESU National
Chairman, Mr Biobebelemoye Josiah, disclosed this in an interview with
newsmen on Wednesday in Abuja.
Josiah explained that members are
demanding for improved working conditions, including the implementation
of skipping of Grade Level 10. According to him, JOHESU is asking for
adjustment of the 2009 CONHESS salary table and allowances as was done
for the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) in January 2014. He described
government insensitivity to the demands as ``provocative, insulting and
unjust in the worst dimension in a democratic dispensation’’.
Josiah
lamented that members of the union were being subjected to
discrimination and industrial marginalisation in the health sector in
favour of NMA members.
On the issue of skipping of Grade level 10, he
noted that rather than paying them the money government went ahead to
pay medical doctors which he claimed were not entitle to such allowance
by law.
Josiah also explained that the court ruled in their favour
that they should be paid, adding that government failed to respect the
court injunction. However, Josiah called on the federal government to
give priority attention and capture the financial implication of the
demands in this year’s health sector budget. According to him, JOHESU
comprised more than 99 per cent of service deliverance in the health
system, noting that government failure to meet the demands would have
negative impact on the country’s healthcare delivery.
``JOHESU
members and doctors are treated differently, even when it is not the
right of doctors to earn specific pay they accord them the pay which is
part of the problems we are passing through. ``This now brings
disharmony because there is no fair administration of the health system
which is part of the things that is causing disharmony and turbulence in
the system, to avoid that the President should change such act,’’ he
said. JOHESU is an umbrella body of all professional and
non-professional health workers, excluding medical doctors.
www.vanguardngr.com/2016/02/johesu-threatens-indefinite-strike-at-12-midnight/
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